Patrick T. Brown

Proposals to reduce or eliminate student debt on a large scale are often proposed in the spirit of lifting barriers to family formation, allowing young adults to marry or become parents. But understanding what role student debt plays in the lives of young Americans is important before adopting widespread policy prescriptions.

Not only do marriage penalties leave families economically worse off, they also undermine marriage, an essential institution in a functioning society.

EPPC Fellow Patrick T. Brown talks with Spotlight on Poverty about the congressional debate over child tax credits and what working-class families think about proposed federal aid.

David Wessel’s book Only the Rich Can Play offers an uncomfortable reminder that no matter how much you may appreciate an idea’s intellectual lineage or conceptual clarity, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

If politicians want expanded child benefits to stick, they need to listen to the families that will benefit most.

It is difficult to look at the existing public education system and recommend it as a model for ensuring high-quality child care for newborns, toddlers, and preschoolers.

For a “populist” agenda to be more than a noisy veneer on pre-existing preferences, partisans of the right and left need to recognize the distance between their favored narratives and the ones that keep working-class Americans up at night.

To be successful, the pro-housing movement must respect the desire of homeowners to influence the look and feel of their neighborhood. Showing such flexibility will help smooth the path for more housing, in more styles, and in more neighborhoods, across the United States.

A conservative educational agenda needs to move beyond choice alone and toward a system of educational pluralism in which government dollars are used to support a multiplicity of schooling options.

As the ripple effects from COVID start to fade, making more communities attractive to couples and families who want to move should become a priority of any pro-family policy agenda.

If conservatives are serious about opposing progressives’ prescriptions for big-government solutions to child care affordability, they need to come up with proactive ideas beyond just tax credits.

A conservative family policy should be about supporting families as the core building block of a flourishing society — and recognizing the work parents put into rearing the next generation.